Indiana Firefighters Return from Atlanta

Chicago's NBC affiliate, WMAQ, ran a story tonight about two Portage, Indiana, firefighters who gave up on their FEMA assignments (mentioned below) and returned home.

[Assistant Fire Chief Bill] Lundy and [Assistant Fire Chief Joe] Calhoun said they don't [want] to bash FEMA or its mission, [NBC5's Phil] Rogers reported. They said they only want to help, and they said there were plenty of other firefighters in the room who felt the same way.

"There was almost a fight," said Portage Assistant Fire Chief Joe Calhoun. "There was probably 700 firefighters sitting in the room getting this training and it dawned on them what we were going to be doing, and then it got bad from there."

. . .
"We're trained in tactical medicine," Lundy said. "We weren't being used for that. We were being used to hand out flyers."

Their boss, Portage Fire Chief Tim Sosby, said he was only too happy to loan out his two men, but thin[k]s they were right to come back home.

"It seemed like an incredible misuse of valuable resources," he said.

The two didn't come home right away, Rogers reported. They waited 24 hours, hoping their real skills might be used. Not only did their assignment never change, they were never told to go anywhere.